“Received 3 samples, tested them against scratches, dogs, and water. They held up well. The floors will be expensive and the family can't agree on anything.”
“I’d pick 5 stars and say the color was what I expected on all of the samples. We really like the samples. It helps a lot to have larger pieces to consider structure and color - we looked at 5 colors and both sizes - I’ll address all of them. The structure is more substantial than many we’ve looked at. The embossing matching the grain is very well done and looks realistic from many angles and in various lighting.
We originally thought we might prefer Arbor but we’ve lightened up this house after moving in about 2 years ago. My husband liked the color of Arbor but really didn’t like the high contrast of the darker floor. We also had a sample of Madiera which looks nice but was even darker. He doesn’t often have strong opinions on such things so when he does it carries some weight. After looking at pictures of other installations and moving the samples all over our house to check with lighting, existing fixed decor and specific furniture pieces we settled on Sutton. We were both surprised how much we liked the two gray tones (Ashford and Arlo) and how good they looked in our house.
In the end, I preferred the warmer tones of Sutton and how well it worked with some of the other materials I like. We’ve enjoyed both light and dark floors in the past so it was a toss up going in. We are still working on plans for finishing our basement. We may choose Arbor down there since the current plan is to have that part of the house use darker colors and be more of a man cave.
We got samples in Arbor of both the signature and base sizes. We’re considering using the larger planks on our fairly open main floor and the base planks upstairs where there are bedrooms and more distinct spaces. I was originally thinking of it more so that the scale worked better upstairs and reduced overall cost a bit. We found the difference in thickness could really work to our advantage. On the main floor we have heavier trimwork and more of a variety of flooring to remove so trim adjustments, leveling subfloor etc are expected and thicker planks help. Upstairs we have a catwalk that is open on both sides. That one area makes any flooring that needs expansion a bit tricky (its carpet right now). The slightly thinner base planks will fit in the existing gap so that the floor level trim that connects to moldings on the outsides won’t have to be adjusted. Not sure if that makes sense but it solved a weird issue we had run into. Still unsure which size might suit our eventual basement layout.
Our reasons for considering LVP: We have big dogs, cats and kids. Our existing hardwood gets a workout and the color isn’t really a favorite. We initially considered wood-look tile and hardwood (reg and engineered) but both have drawbacks. We didn’t want site-finishing - we moved out to do that before and it was a real pain. It would be more difficult now. We also wanted to be able to work area by area so we could relocate furniture as we go. Since we’re planning to do the whole house, even closets, that’s an issue, it won’t all fit in the garage at one time to have a crew come in and just having people in these days is tricky.
We had various samples of prefinished wood floors and my husband absentmindedly used one as a coaster. After 1/2 hour the finish was ruined. So we checked a bunch of others. Even some really pricey floors didn’t perform well or they scratched really easily. The ones that passed the coaster test weren’t really our favorites because their finish left them looking sort of fake. That led us to start over and consider more options. I didn’t want to transition to tile in the kitchen because of where the transition would be. He wanted something more durable in the kitchen. We were at a bit of a stalemate. We had never liked laminate but we had put in a fairly inexpensive wood look vinyl plank in a windowless basement about 7 years back. It was a good choice for the space, looked really good, performed pretty well and was surprisingly warmer underfoot than the carpet that had been there before. With all the advances in the past few years we though the newer LVP might be an option for the main living spaces.
That may be more than you requested as far as a review of color and features but those concerns are some of the factors that even led us to consider LVP. The base plank is a good size with really good features compared to others and was the initial size we were looking at overall in most types of flooring. The larger plank sizes and thicker wear layer are compelling features for the signature planks. Having the option of the matching larger plank in the more open, heavier traffic, presents a really good option to fit the various spaces we have and still have it all work together nicely.”
